iPhone photo drop VA edition

This blog has been so neglected since I came to VA. I apologize, but I'm having a really good time and have been busy spending time with family and friends, going out to eat, shopping, and just having fun!  I haven't even used my regular camera yet.  I'm doing a photo drop from my iPhone in no particular order.  I've been randomly snapping pictures all week.

Avery with her Pop Pop on a walk.  We've been going for walks (and I have been running some) almost daily.

On Wednesday, we got to see the Space Shuttle Discovery be escorted into Dulles.  I got a great shot while out on a run.  I'll probably never see this happen again!  It was pretty cool.  Things like this make me miss living in the DC area.

Avery all dressed cute in some new leggings and a jean dress before going out to breakfast at IHOP.

Checking out the menu at IHOP... Avery enjoyed her pancakes and eggs!

Another day we stopped and had lunch at Olive Garden.

We like food in this family!  The other night we ordered some pizza and meatball heroes from Tony's.  I LOVE me some Tony's!  Dad got me a cannoli too! :-)

Avery's first time eating some Tony's pizza!

Last night I went to dinner with my best friend Erin and her mom Patrice.  We went to Sweetwater Tavern which is one of my favorite restaurants!  I had some delicious crab cakes, mashed potatoes and coleslaw!  I was in a food coma afterwards.

After dinner at Sweetwater, we decided to go browse around Target.  We all know I can't walk in heels.  I don't even own any heels!  Well I came across these awesome gold glittery platform heels and fell in LOVE!  They are so cute!  I didn't buy them, but I had to take some pictures of myself wearing them.

This morning Avery pulled out all of her toys, but just wanted to play with her monster trucks!

Mom and I did some shopping the other day.  Avery cleaned up as always. We got her some really cute outfits at Osh Kosh B'Gosh.  I love all the red white and blue stuff for summer.

And we found her a new outfit and bath towel and wash cloth set at Kohl's.  I couldn't pass up the fun animal print outfit!

Happy Saturday!

having fun

Avery and I have been enjoying our first days in Virginia! Avery is loving spending time with gammie and pop pop and I have been loving being able to go out with friends. It has been so wonderful to see everyone. We had a family BBQ at the house on Sunday with everyone. I've been slacking on the pictures and I promise to do a better job! Here are some of Avery at the BBQ!

Happy Monday!

update on our travels

Just a quick update... we made it to VA safe and sound on Wednesday evening!  Avery made friends at the airport and on the plane.  She was a little social butterfly the entire day.  She only broke down the last hour of the flight.  My mom and brother picked us up at Dulles airport and we headed home.  Well we made a pit stop at Chickfila for dinner since we were all starving.  Here is Avery in the back of my brothers car sitting in rush hour traffic on route 28 (some things never change!).

My parents and brother surprised Avery and I with some Easter Peeps!  Avery and I love those suckers!

Today was a girls day.  My mom, Avery, and I headed out to Super Target and Bath and Body Works.  We needed to pick up some groceries for dinner, and I needed to get replacement toiletries for what I had to leave in Texas.  (Yup, my luggage was too heavy when we checked in, so I had to leave stuff behind).

After shopping in the morning, we came home for some lunch and play time.  Avery is loving playing with my brothers little drum.  She is also having fun with her plastic Easter eggs and basket.  She loves putting the eggs in the basket and taking them back out again.

And she likes putting the basket on her head like a hat!

Avery took a nice afternoon nap for a couple hours.  Once she woke up, we went for a nice walk to get some fresh air.  For dinner we all enjoyed some Hawaiian chicken and brown rice.  Avery gobbled her dinner up!  She had a side of peaches too.

After dinner and a bath in the big bathtub, Avery helped grandpa sweep up the floors.  She is such a great little helper.

Lounging around in the big recliner before bed watching the Disney channel.  I had some trouble getting Avery to sleep tonight.  She was for sure tired, but she was crying super hard when I left her in her crib.  I think it is the new room.  Hopefully she gets used to her surroundings soon.  It feels so weird not having my video monitor to see what shes doing!

Tomorrow my parents have to work, so it will be just Avery and I in the morning and early afternoon.  I'm planning on doing some shopping with my best friend Erin tomorrow evening.  Hope everyone is having a great Thursday!

Happy Easter!

Today the Easter bunny stopped at our house!

Avery was really interested in all her goodies she got :-)

That's my girl, going straight for the milk chocolate dipped yellow Peeps!

Bunny ears!

She LOVED the Peeps (so did mommy and daddy!)... and she got upset when they where all gone.

Hope you had a wonderful Easter!

catching up over the past few days

It's been awhile. I know.

On Wednesday, I drove up to Pflugerville to hang out with Angie and the kids. She wanted to get some pictures of her kids in the bluebonnets, so we packed up and headed over to a really pretty park. I got some cute shots of her kids, and just a few of Avery. She wasn't trying to cooperate with me that day! This was the best one of her out of the bunch.

On Thursday we got our secret Easter gift from one of our friends in Massachusetts.  Avery got three new books (two have stickers in them), a bag of M&M's (which I promptly inhaled), and an Easter card.  I love doing secret gift exchanges with friends!  I'm savings all three of these books for our plane ride on Wednesday.

On Friday we had Avery's 18 month pictures scheduled, but I was feeling under the weather.  We went ahead and cancelled the shoot, and rescheduled for May 4.  Better late than never!  I did dress Avery in her new Easter t-shirt that grandma Charlene sent her and take some pictures.  This t-shirt looked super cute with her denim mini skirt.

Grandma Charlene also sent Avery a few other Easter goodies.  I went ahead and let Avery open what she sent instead of waiting for Easter.  She got two new books and a cute nightgown.

Tomorrow Avery will open the Easter bag from grandpa Rick and grandma Liz, along with the Easter basket I put together for her.  I'm also planning on doing a little Easter egg hunt in our backyard.  She has been having a ball playing with all the plastic eggs lately!

Hope you have a very Happy Easter!

tuesday randoms

Today Avery and I started our day with our morning walk at the trail.  We got over to the trail around 9am.  I'm happy that I was able to run at three different times during my walk while pushing Avery in her BOB stroller.  It was hard, but I'm happy I did more than walk today.  I'm going to try and do a little more each time I get out there.  The eating well is the hard part for me.  I have good and bad days.  I'm hoping to go with my mom to a Weight Watchers meeting when I am home in VA next week.

After we left the trail, we needed to make a couple of stops.  We stopped at the post office to mail a small package and pick up a box from grandma Charlene.  Then we needed to stop at HEB for a few random grocery items.  I like to stop in there for the whole wheat tortillas and pico de gayo that is freshly made.  I also got Avery a new Disney Princess insulated sippy cup.

This afternoon while Avery was napping I started making my packing list for VA.  We leave a week from today.  I'm so excited to spend two weeks at home with my family, but I'm still nervous about flying alone with Avery.  I'm sure I forgot some stuff on this list, but I'm still working on it!

Since the weather is still up and down in VA, I picked up a few new things for Avery at Old Navy.  I got her a new hoodie, pair of boot cut jeans, and some pink and gray leggings.  I picked up the purple leggings at Target for $2!  They match perfectly under a dress Avery already has.  She has a bunch of tops that will match the jeans and leggings.  I think we'll be doing lots of mixing and matching and layering while on vacation.  She'll need all this stuff when we go to CO in May too.

We got a box in the mail the other day from my parents.  They sent Avery a couple cute new outfits from Target for Easter.  I didn't realize they where for Easter, and Avery totally already wore the top and shorts yesterday!  Oops.  :-)

I picked up the tortillas and pico this morning because I made chicken tacos for dinner.  This always turns out so good.  It is super easy too!  My house always smells great when I make chicken tacos.

Some delicious taco goodness!

Avery enjoyed eating some tacos too.  She made a huge mess.  She got a bath in baby wipes.  I'm bathing her every other day now because her skin is very sensitive.  She is currently having a breakout of eczema, so she has dry splotches all over her collar bone area and neck.  She has it on the inside of her elbows too.  We now use all Aveeno Baby Eczema Therapy  products since those seem to work best for her skin.

We just had a little passing thunderstorm and rain.  Avery is in bed, so I'm going to relax and watch some of my shows tonight.  Fashion Star and 16 and Pregnant are both on tonight!  Tomorrow I'm looking forward to driving up to Angie's house.  I am taking bluebonnet pictures of the kids and then we are hanging out for awhile in the afternoon.  Have a great Tuesday night!

avery blake is 18 months old

Avery Blake you are 18 months old.  I seriously can't believe that 18 short months ago I had you bundled up like a little burrito in the hospital room.  I remember being so exhausted the night after you where born, but I couldn't sleep.  I just wanted to sit and rock you all night.  Now you hardly stay still for a minute to sit with me.  Oh how the times have changed.  You are turning into such a fun, sweet, and thoughtful little girl.  

At 18 months old you are wearing size 24 month clothes in one piece outfits and 2T clothes in everything else.  I think spring and summer are going to be our last seasons of wearing cute little one piece rompers.  You wear a size 5 or 5.5 shoe depending on the brand.  You wear a size 5 diaper for day and night.  You have gotten much better at leaving the big bows that mommy loves in your hair.  Your hair is starting to get longer, but we haven't had a first hair cut yet. 

You eat three meals a day, a couple snacks, and love drinking plenty of whole milk.  You are a very good eater and enjoy mostly everything you try.  Some of your favorite foods are cheese, bananas, chicken nuggets, hot dogs, oranges, apples, macaroni and cheese, french toast sticks with syrup, and of course ice cream.  You don't seem to like pineapples. 

You love going for long walks in your stroller, as long as we are going at a steady pace and not stopping.  You love stopping at the park to play on the swings and slide.  You have fallen in love with the outdoors.  You love being outside and exploring your surroundings.  You are going to be your daddy's little outdoors buddy helping him in the yard and going on hikes.  You are quite the daredevil and climb onto everything without a care in the world.  You are a huge animal lover, especially dogs.  You light up when you see dogs when we are out and about.  You are crazy about Rolo Brown. 

You love electronics.  Phones, computers, TV's... you love it all.  Your favorite show to watch in the morning while sitting on the couch and drinking milk is Sesame Street. 

You love to run, play chase, and hide and seek.  You love giggling and being tickled.  You give hugs.  You like opening and closing doors and cabinets.  You hold hands when going for walks, when we are out shopping, or even just in the house for fun.  I'm pretty sure your two favorite spots to go are Super Target and Chickfila since we are there at least once a week!  You are always good for me when we go out.  You like to people watch, wave to people, and snack on goodies while sitting in a shopping cart. 

You still love your pacifier.  You always get it for naps and bedtime.  You have started to help with getting yourself dressed in the morning.  You love shoes and purses.  You love playing with anything that opens and closes and you can put things inside it.  You like your blocks, books, mini laptop, shopping cart, baby dolls, lullaby seahorse, lovey bear and bunny, stuffed animals, and bright musical Disney movies.  You are good at lining toys up and stacking toys on top of one another.  You like handing toys to me to use.  You pretend eat with your plates and forks. 

You are one loveable little toddler.  You love for mommy and daddy to be on the floor with you so you can crawl all over us and be affectionate.  Words can't express how much we love you.  You are seriously the coolest little person we know.  You make us laugh daily and always put a smile on our faces.  You are one special girl Avery Blake.  Happy 18 months!  We love you!

our yard and some news!

Wow, look at me with two posts today!  Eric worked in the yard today.  He trimmed and mowed and pulled some weeds.  The yard is looking much better than it did.  We're also having a lawn service come monthly to spray to help with the nasty weeds we get.  If you live in Texas, you know what I'm talking about.  Here is the front of the house. 

One of the front tree beds.  We didn't plant any new flowers.  These are coming back from last year.  Eric is calling them zombie flowers. 

The side bed on the left side of the house. 

Our big and pretty oleander! 

The backyard... look no weeds!

We have some bird friends that moved in with us recently.  There is a nest with a mommy bird and a few baby birds!  I hear them in the mornings all the time.  We have seen the mommy feed all the little babies too.  It is pretty cool. 

Eric was able to get a shot of all the baby birds asleep in the nest this afternoon.  They are all wrapped up with one another. 

And just for fun... Avery after her nap... pushing the ottoman around with her cup of milk reading her new catalog from Shrimp and Grits Kids.  I guess she wants some new clothes!

I have some news!  I'm going to face a fear in a couple weeks.  I sucked it up and bought plane tickets for Avery and I to fly home to Washington DC to visit my parents for two weeks.  Flying makes me anxious and scares me.  Avery has flown before, but with both Eric and I.  Avery is getting her own seat on the plane sitting in her car seat.  I think that will be easier than trying to hold and wrestle her in my lap for 3.5 hours.  I'm planning on bringing lots of good snacks and new goodies to play with while in the air.  Besides the flying part, I am SO excited to be going home!